GARDEN TOURS
Find inspiration for your own garden at the Music
in the Gardens Tour on the Long Beach Peninsula July 18
and the Seaside Downtown Garden Walk July 26
N
orthwest gardens are
looking
their
best now, which
means it’s time
for garden tours.
This year there
are two excel-
lent and very
different tours on
successive week-
ends. The ¿rst, 6at-
urday, July 18, is the
Music in the Gardens
Tour on the Long Beach
3eninsula. 1ext 6unday,
July 26, you can tour the urban
gardens of 6easide. 2n both tours you
can enjoy creative and refreshing gardens
and, if you’re a gardener, ask questions and
collect information. That is, get ideas for
your own garden,
Quality and diversity are the bywords on
the Long Beach tour. 6ince 26 this tour
has been showing gardens creatively adapt-
ed to local conditions, which include every-
thing from wind and rain to elk and bears.
Eight gardens will display everything from
roses to cabbages, and ² a ¿rst for any local
tour — a home wetlands restoration project.
While strolling the grounds at these venues
you can munch goodies and listen to music
as diverse as the gardens. Long beach musi-
cians will contribute, of course, and Acustica
World Music from across the river will also
play, as will the folk duo Winterlings and
guitarist Terry Robb, both from Portland.
The garden of Rita Nicely and Ken
Golling is a series of outdoor “rooms” (in-
cluding the new “Buddha Garden”) sur-
rounding a lodge-like home. There’s a
meditation alcove, a small pond that feeds a
stream that empties into a frog pond, and a
variety of meticulously tended native plants
and perennials. Berries are picked early to
avoid attracting bears. “We worked with na-
ture,” says Nicely, “and on nice days we can
sit on the porch with our wine, watching the
sunset, and on the other side of the house we
can watch the sunrise over Willapa Bay.”
Two gardens are side-by-side. That of Gin-
ger Bisch is a more traditional garden, be¿t-
ting the B&B it surrounds. Next door, Marla
McGrew says that she and husband Gary, “re-
cycle or repurpose whatever we can.” You’ll
¿nd whimsical pots and trellises made from
old wooden ladders, and both gardens have
the latest garden craze: chickens.
Elsewhere on the tour you’ll see a classic
The garden of Rita Nicely and Ken Golling features meticulously tended native plants and perennials. The couple’s garden will be
one of eight on the Music in the Garden tour on the Long Beach Peninsula.
cut Àower garden, a bird watcher’s paradise,
and an “aromatherapy deck” with jasmine,
gardenias and pinks, covered with multi-lay-
ered sails that dance in the wind. The “High
Tide Hilton” isn’t an hotel, but it’s a garden
¿lled with fun regional art, driftwood gates,
and what is perhaps the best outdoor kitchen
on the peninsula.
Perhaps the most unique stop on the tour
is the “,sle of Bev” restoration project. 2wn-
ers Kelly Rupp and Bev Arnoldy (hence the
name) have worked to restore this former
Willapa Bay cannery site to its original state,
including planting hundreds of native plants
and dredging a pond.
About an hour south of Long Beach, the
city of 6easide welcomes visitors with its
urban gardens. There are over 1 of these
small gardens in the downtown core (bound-
ed by Avenue A, 8.6. Highway 11, )irst
Avenue, and the Prom), and the city also
provides 66 hanging baskets. Many of these
small gardens are included on the Downtown
Garden Walk, which is sponsored by the
Music in the Gardens:
The tour is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Satur-
day, July 18. Tickets cost $20 and may be
purchased at The English Nursery (cor-
ner of highways 101 and 103 in Seaview)
or at Peninsula Landscape Supply (15289
Sandridge Road, Long Beach). More in-
formation at http://watermusicfestival.
com/music-in-the-gardens-tour
Seaside Downtown
Garden Walk:
This walk takes place at 9 a.m. Sunday,
July 26. Free, or $8 with the breakfast
and talk. No reservations are needed
for the walk, but are necessary for the
breakfast: call 503-717-1914.
Continued on page 15
the arts
VISUAL ARTS • LITERATURE • THEATER • MUSIC & MORE
The peninsula garden of Rita Nicely and Ken Golling features a frog pond.
Story and photos by DWIGHT CASWELL
July 16, 2015 | coastweekend.com | 9